Saturday, April 25, 2009

30 at Pineland

Today's long run went really well. I was definitely tired, but overall I felt pretty good actually. I never was bonking and was able to simply enjoy the run. Keeping the pace slow definitely helped with that, obviously. I had planned on my 100-mile race pace, but I was actually a couple minutes per mile faster than that, but it still felt comfortable.

Neighbor Kate and I started at about a quarter past five in the morning, just as the sun was beginning to rise. Her plan was to do eight miles, and she actually got in a bit more than that and looked strong out there. Afterwards, I ran with Mindy for the duration and we were joined by Stephen not too much later. The three of us kept each other moving and we had a lot of fun out there. Several others were there for the group run as well, but many of them were doing shorter distances and consequently they were much faster (most would still smoke me on the longer distances, the Trail Monster talent pool runs deep).

My current weekly mileage total now stands at 98.2 and I still have tomorrow, which will feature a short run to get me past the century mark. Very, very pleased with how this week has gone. My body has held up fine and hopefully the training will pay some big dividends down the road. One thing is certain though... Mentally, this week has been a huge boost. My training had been coming along okay prior to this week, but I still felt I needed something else big. Now I'm pretty happy.

After tomorrow's little jaunt, I'll be in a bit of a taper mode, as I'm pacing Stephen at the Massanutten 100 in three weeks and am really looking forward to that. That'll mean a 37 mile run for me, and the week after, I'll be running the Pineland Farms 50-mile race. After that, it'll be tapering down again for the Western States 100. Yessir, it's all coming together.

Also worth noting there was a huge temperature swing today. Upper 30s at the start and upper 70s to end.